


Somewhere Between These Lies

by drifting_chronotope



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dubious Morality, M/M, Masturbation, Sexual Fantasy, Smut, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15077147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drifting_chronotope/pseuds/drifting_chronotope
Summary: Maul finds himself thinking along dangerous lines one evening after investigating a curious new chest that appeared in Hemming’s room.





	Somewhere Between These Lies

**Author's Note:**

> As a possible spoiler, being familiar with the quest "Vald's Debt" may help provide some reference, though it's not really necessary.

The small chest was plain in the way only expensive things could be. Its lock was likewise plain, seemingly, until Maul studied it closer. He sucked his teeth and then sorted through his picks until he found what he wanted. It took him a little longer than it might've taken Delvin or Brynjolf, but after a few careful moments he heard the satisfying _click_ that never got old. He lifted the lid.

Inside the chest rested a quill. Maul looked at it. He didn't know enough about quills to know if it was expensive or just gaudy, but he did know the enchantment on it had cost Maven a pretty septim, so, by transitive logic, he knew it was a damned expensive quill.

"Black-Briars," he muttered at the chest.

Maven’s magic quill. Had to be. It matched the description he’d gleaned from her talk about it, and she’d not been able to shut up about it after Vald dropped it in the lake. It was Maven's quill. And Maul had found it in Hemming's room.

"Do you always leave the door open when you are sneaking around in someone's room?"

Maul glanced over his shoulder to find Hemming walking through the doorway with a surprisingly calm expression for a man who had walked in on another man riffling through his personal things.

"Depends," Maul said with a shrug. "It's not really sneaking if I'm not trying to hide," which wasn't technically true but he figured now wasn't the moment for technicalities.

"The concept of privacy or respect of another's property must be lost on a man with your upbringing."

Maul gave an unfriendly smile and nodded at the quill. "I could say the same for you, sweetheart."

Hemming didn't rise to the taunt, or at least not in the way Maul expected. Instead of turning into the pinch-faced prune he usually became, he laughed softly, and there was a self-satisfied look of defiance in his eyes that caught Maul completely off guard.

It was unsettlingly attractive, for one.

"I suppose you are right," Hemming said, a wry smirk curving his mouth. "How very like a thief of me to claim that things I find at the bottom of a lake are mine."

Maul kept his expression blank and bored as a matter of practiced habit. This was becoming interesting. He casually rolled up his lock-picking tools and tucked them back into one of his pouches.

"You mean to tell me that _you_ went diving for this?" Maul's dry tone ran the border along impressed. He kind of liked the image of Hemming emerging from Lake Honrich, wet and slick and bare; he also didn’t plan to admit that. "I didn't know you could keep your mouth shut long enough to hold your breath, much less that you could swim."

“I am able to swim.” Hemming's highboned cheeks finally colored. "I also have access to waterbreathing potions. And, yes, I found it in Lake Honrich."

That wasn't an explicit admission. They could be talking about two different quills, though that chance was slim to none. He knew Dirge dumped a lot of junk in there, but he highly doubted that Lake Honrich was teeming with abandoned quills wrapped for transport.

"So what's the plan here, Hemming?" He sat back in his chair, carefully watching Hemming walk up to the table. "You can't even use it."

Hemming cocked his head with a doe-eyed sort of innocence that really shouldn't have looked so good on him. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," Maul said in a flat tone. "This is that quill Maven commissioned from the wizards up in Winterhold." He glared at Hemming, daring him to deny it, but Hemming said nothing, so he continued, "We both heard her going on about how nobody can use the enchantment without that ink only she knows how to make."

"Ah, yes, the special ink. Mother's security measure."

Hemming reached and slowly traced one long finger over the quill. Maul wasn't sure if he was trying to make the motion of his finger stroking the length of the quill look seductive, but there was a part of Maul that kind of felt it was, and he clamped down on those thoughts quick right as Hemming's fingers began to pet the felt lining the chest.

"Amazingly," Hemming said, "even if you are only using regular ink with an enchanted quill, you are still writing with a fucking inked quill. It works surprising well in that regard."

Maul barked one hard laugh. It put a crack in his shell of professional boredom, but he couldn't help it. Hemming flashed another of those unfamiliar, crooked smiles and pulled his hand back from the chest.

"Besides, I don't want to use the enchantment. I haven't even used the quill for writing at all," Hemming said, matter-of-fact. "I simply want to keep it."

"Why?" Maul asked before he could catch himself and Hemming looked at him with an expression he couldn't quite fix, but it looked dangerous, which wasn't a word he often used to describe Maven's son.

"I found it. It's mine."

Maul didn't ask for clarification. He didn't really need to know the why and why for. He needed to snap the chest shut, grab it, and go find Maven. Let her browbeat her son into explaining his behavior. That kind of internal family business was way outside his paycheck.

Except Maul didn't do that. Likely the third stupid thing he did that night.

"Okay," Maul said, holding up his palms briefly in a gesture of acquiescence. "It's yours."

Hemming's strange calm faltered—he was _surprised_.

That was a revelation. Maul realized then that Hemming hadn't been calm in the first place. Since he walked through the door he'd been prepared to fight, truly and without mercy. He'd also obviously been prepared to lose.

Maul's eyebrows rose. He made to stand from the chair but Hemming was suddenly in his space, pressing him back into it with a hand on his shoulder before Maul could register a protest.

"You won't tell her?"

Maul blinked at the question. Well, it had sounded like a question, anyway. A look at Hemming's face confirmed it. He was looking at Maul with one of his guarded expressions, but there was a whiff of vulnerability in it that made it clear he was asking, not demanding. That was disorientating. Hemming's hand tightened on his shoulder and Maul snapped back into place.

"Nah," Maul said, dumbly, "she won't hear it from me," which went entirely against his job description, but he was already making exceptions that night. How many was he up to so far?

Hemming looked at him a moment longer, then released him. Maul ignored the pang of disappointment as Hemming stepped away; though the intensity of it worried him, a little. He couldn't ignore the way his pulse jumped when he caught Hemming's queer yellow eyes watching him curiously.

"What do you want in return?" Hemming asked, eyes fixed on Maul.

Maul wrinkled his brow and stared at Hemming. This was getting embarrassing. "What?"

Hemming made an impatient noise. "For not telling Mother. What do you want?"

"Your gold is no good to me," Maul said, which sounded tough, but meant little coming from a mercenary retainer like him. He lived off Black-Briar gold. Of course, a very stupid part of his mind reminded him as he redirected his gaze from plump lips, not all debts were paid in gold.

Hemming's expression turned unfamiliar again, contemplating him, as if he was expecting something from Maul, searching for something. He looked strangely honest in that moment; he looked stripped of his everyday layers of scorn and arrogance and self-deceit. It was... refreshing. And slightly upsetting. It made him wonder if he'd ever really looked closely at Hemming before, at the man underneath the Black-Briar mantle. Did such a man even exist? As far as Maul knew, Hemming was a noxious, narcissistic, bigoted, over-privileged prick—a rich merchant’s son who’d never worked a hard day’s labor in his life and thought little of those who did. But he’d never expected Hemming _not_ to be like that. After all, for a man like Hemming, if you stripped away the family name and all the entitlements that went with it, what would there be left?

Maul tightened his jaw; he didn't entirely trust himself around this new side of Hemming, not yet. He barely hid his flinch when Hemming moved, reached, and gently clicked shut the chest’s lid, undoing Maul's careful pick-work in a second. He lingered near Maul, close enough that Maul could scent his cologne.

"I suppose I should improve my security," Hemming murmured. "Sibbi's still in his jail cell," Maul said, "but it wouldn't be a bad idea if you plan to keep this quiet. That and don't put the damn thing in plain sight," which made Hemming smile.

"Maul," Hemming said then, "a question if you will," softly.

Maul grunted. There was no way he trusted his voice, not when Hemming glanced at him briefly before fixing his gaze back on the chest. Hemming bowed his head forward, loose dark hair trickling around his cheeks, tongue licking quickly over his lips. It was obscene how easily Maul imagined Hemming bending forward to do other things with that tongue of his.

Finally, Hemming asked, "What would you do with the quill?"

Maul knew what he should say, what Maven would prefer he say, what it'd be his job to say, and maybe what really was the most sensible thing to say because if he had been the man to haul it out of the lake that was exactly what he'd do. He didn't say that.

Maul looked at the chest, picturing the quill inside, picturing Maven's face, picturing how the conversation would go, and said, "I'd throw the damned thing back in the lake."

Hemming smiled again. "Even if you had access to the recipe for the ink?"

"Especially if I had that."

Hemming nodded. He glanced at Maul again with that coy, all-too-innocent look. "Is there anything else in my room you planned to inspect?"

Maybe Hemming didn't realize what he was doing. The subtle movements. The veiled invitations. Maybe he didn't realize Maul could see the way his cheeks flushed and his eyelashes fluttered. Maybe.

"Yeah, all done," Maul said, standing, making for the door, and he made an absolute point of not catching the soft sigh Hemming let out, nor the way he watched Maul leave.

Maul managed to keep his face blank until he'd locked himself inside his room. He was still half-hard, which was embarrassing, but Maul already knew he found Hemming attractive. It was just usually easier to ignore that flutter of interest when Hemming was saying or doing something blatantly obnoxious. Tonight had been different. Tonight Maul had very much wanted to take the openings Hemming offered him; invitations that loyalty, fear, had kept him from taking. Maul was too well-versed in Maven's fury to fuck her son based on a bit of flirting.

He sat on his bed and let the conversation loop back through his mind. Had Hemming really been flirting with him? Or had he just been in a mood? Maul knew what his gut was telling him, but it was also possible he’d misinterpreted the whole thing, let his own desires color Hemming's words and gestures into something entirely of his own creation. As unlikely as that was, that made the most sense. Hemming was Maven’s son—a Black-Briar—and Black-Briars don’t flirt with men like Maul.

It was just that if he closed his eyes, he saw Hemming's flushed cheeks and bright eyes. He saw a man, awkward but determined, burning with unfamiliar defiance, and it stirred up something desperate in Maul's subconscious. He wanted that look. He wanted to show Hemming how far that defiance could go. He wanted Hemming under him, giving him that look, wanted to know what his face looked like glazed with pleasure as Maul ploughed him open.

His dick twitched. Any other night, he'd be disgusted with himself. Tonight, “Fuck,” Maul grunted, then scrunched his pants to his thighs and gave in.

He made a fist and pushed into it, rolling his foreskin back slowly, grip twisting on the drag up, the scenario springing into his mind with little finesse and even less hesitation.

Hemming would be tight, Maul wagered. He’d be a chore to open up, and he’d get impatient and start to beg, _plead_ , for Maul to get in and split him open already. And Maul would do it. He’d get him just loose enough to keep Maven from clipping his stones off if he tore her son apart, and then he’d slam into him, punch right down until he was ball’s flush in that tight ass, listening to him cuss and mewl and whimper, and then he’d pull out and slam back in again.

Maul dropped his head back against the wall and groaned, squeezing around his dick and picturing just how wrecked Hemming might look speared on it. He licked his tongue across his bottom lip and smeared his thumb into the fluid leaking out around his tip.

He would have Hemming _howling_ with pleasure before he was done with him.

He paused to lick his palm before getting hands back on his cock, groaning properly this time he pushed into his fist and cupped his other under his balls. The scene in his mind changed to Hemming knelt between his spread legs, bruised lips kissing the precum off his cock’s crown, all ready to swallow him down.

Maul wasn’t sure if the real Hemming would be any good at sucking dick. Probably not. Fantasy Hemming was a champ at it.

He imagined Hemming’s hot tongue licking up his length, red wet mouth closing around his tip, suckling, tasting, slow and wanton, cheeks hollowing out, his eyes now the soft gold of spun-honey and starting to water as he looked up into Maul’s face, inch after inch of Maul’s cock slipping into the ring made by his prissy, pouty lips. He imagined the slick friction and close grip was his cock bumping its way into his throat.

Maul held in a groan, hips rocking up, palm on his sac, feeling breathless and desperate, already speeding towards that sweet climax much faster than a simple jerk-off session really should. But there it was, image crystallized in his mind’s eye: Hemming bobbing his head between his thighs like Maul’s cock was his only salvation, lips squeezing, tongue laving, the chorus of filthy slurps and slippery drool...

He clenched his jaws and his nostrils flared, and he let the fantasy ride on.

He wondered how soft Hemming’s inky-black hair would feel under his hands, how sweet his cologne would smell against Maul’s own scent of leather and sweat, how hot his mouth would feel as it sucked him in, how greedily he would curl into his touch, how loud he would moan as Maul whispered encouragement and egged him on.

As Maul encouraged him—as Maul _praised_ him.

He snatched a rag from his table and covered his tip just in time to catch the orgasm that ripped through him, fist pumping hard, hips lifting off his bed as spurts filled the cloth while he thought of Hemming swallowing his load, his hungry sucking not stopping until he’d milked Maul dry.

It took him a moment to recover.

“Damn,” he rasped weakly. He sank back against the wall and bunched up the rag and tossed it into the corner. He spent another good moment just breathing, spent cock flopped on his thigh, slicked palms hot on his stomach.

“Damn,” he repeated. He blinked as if to clear his thoughts, but that final image remained. The image of Hemming, smiling, _happy_ , face streaked with trails of spit and cum, eyes shining, lips red and swollen, and all of him focused on _Maul_.

Maul exhaled a slow breath. Any other night, he’d ignore the empty ache he felt mixing in with the warm buzz of sated lust. Tonight it felt shameful to deny it.

He wasn’t the kind of man to agonize over past mistakes; he preferred to avoid making new ones. After all, working for someone like Maven had a definite learning curve. She paid Maul to be smart, but not _too_ smart. She paid him to notice things, but not _everything_. She paid him to mind her business, but not _all_ of her business. But Maul’s whole life had seen him navigating gray middles and slippery unknowns. He managed. What was one more?


End file.
